CRN Channel News

VARs and distributors fuel the hot wireless market

With OEMs tripping over themselves to promote wireless technologies and high-powered mobile devices, stimulating demand in the portable data space is hardly a problem. Even so, brisk customer interest and an ever-expanding universe of products do not come without their own challenges for integrators. Staying informed and authoritative is vital, and distributors offer a great deal to assist VARs with the complexities of the hot wireless market.

Get in step with Bell Micro’s storage offerings

Bell Microproducts is the kind of distributor that takes storage seriously. As a $2.5 billion company with 1,500 employees worldwide, Bell Micro generates 75 percent of its revenue through its storage business. "So, if we don't make it in storage, we don't make it, period," says Phil Rossey, executive vice president of Enterprise Solutions at Bell Micro. Those are key words to consider if you are a reseller looking to team up with a distributor for guidance and support.

These days, Gary Fish's conversations often begin with CEOs rather than CTOs. With almost daily media coverage of worms, hackers and viruses, even the least technical executives in his client base are conscious of the need to protect their corporate networks, so his sales can begin at the top.

We examine five products

When it comes to the latest crop of wireless routers, the adage, "you get what you pay for," applies. This product category has gotten wider and deeper over the past year--not only have products become more feature-rich, but you can now find routers that cost as little as $100 alongside others that are more than $1,000. Moreover, this year's vintage includes products that can handle more than one radio frequency.

Move your customers from PBX to VoIP in 11 steps

Fully global, end-to-end voice over IP (VoIP) is not yet practical for all organizations. But intraoffice VoIP hardware can be deployed in data routers and managed with the same tools used to maintain the data routers. With VoIP, data and voice are married on a single wire. The result: Network complexity is reduced and accountability is consolidated.

Growing segments include PCs used for games and other entertainment

In a worldwide market wracked by consolidation and commoditization, it might seem that opportunity is shrinking along with the number of suppliers. However, the white-box market, particularly in the area of multimedia, can offer systems integrators and VARs some unique opportunities.

In voting to ban Internet taxes for four more years by 93-3, the U. S. Senate reached a gentlemanly agreement that saw both sides of the spirited debate claim success. Now comes the hard part--hammering out a compromise with the House, which last fall voted to permanently ban Internet taxes.

Nortel VAR introduces hotel to the world of convergence

If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. Frank Sinatra surely wasn't thinking of IP telephony when he sang those well-known lyrics, but it's certainly what Starwood Hotels and Resorts had in mind when it chose its flagship Sheraton location in midtown Manhattan to deploy its first VoIP solution. Boasting 1,750 rooms and 665 rooms, respectively, in two adjacent skyscrapers separated by 7th Avenue, officials at White Plains, N.Y.-based Starwood figured if it could get IP telephony to work there, it would be easier to implement at any of its other 766 hotels worldwide.

New economic data indicates increased business, consumer confidence

The economy is now hitting on all cylinders, according to several economic reports released this week. For the channel, that means the good times should continue, since businesses' increased confidence in economic conditions typically leads more companies to loosen the purse strings for technology spending.

IT spending is not only recovering, it is building a base that will power it to even higher levels in the coming months, according to a survey of more than 130,000 IT decision makers conducted by the Wendover Corp.